We are waiting for further guidance from DfE and Arts Council about returning to schools and it seems highly likely that we will not be coming into schools until the Autumn Term.

Even then, we are looking at preparing for that over the next few weeks so we can be clear to schools with the different scenarios we may well be faced with and will certainly will work with school leaders on that.

We will continue to provide online lessons to as many pupils that want them throughout the next half term. These have gone very well this last half term and thank you for your support on that.

Due to Covid-19 and the requirements for social distancing, all of our centre-based courses will now take place online until further notice. We have been running our courses online since April and are extremely happy with the positive feedback we have received so far. Thank you for your support in this.

We know that you may be rethinking how you will use your staff training at the start of next term. At Services For Education we have developed a range of options to deliver in school professional development including safeguarding training.

We are able to deliver any combination of the following:

• Live and interactive webinars to up to 250 delegates
• Pre-recorded webinars to be accessed at any time within a given period
• Workbooks to accompany live webinars to help delegates to process the learning and apply it to their own schools and situations
• Follow up online discussions/consultancy with target groups of staff.

Contact us to discuss your autumn inset session needs and requirements, and purchase all scheduled courses as normal via the website and we will email you registration details for the online delivery.

For the foreseeable future, we will be providing all of our training courses digitally, using GoToWebinar and video conferencing.

Purchase the course as normal via the website and we will send you an email with a registration link nearer to the time of your course. Please make sure you use the right email address for the attendee when purchasing a course.

If you are already booked onto a course, you will also receive an email with a registration link nearer to the time of your course.

Please note the following:

• Please contact us if you would like to be transferred to a different date/ time (for courses with multiple times/dates)
• If you cannot make the course but a colleague will be attending instead, please contact us
• If you miss the course for some reason, please contact us

We really appreciate your support to keep things running smoothly during this time.

We understand that technical issues can arise, so if you drop out of the webinar due to bad signal etc. please try to re-join using the link in the email you will have received.  If you cannot re-join, please contact us at hello@servicesforeducation.co.uk and we will discuss how to proceed after the webinar has taken place.

Over the last few days, we have been busy setting things in place for temporary Online Music School Lessons to start as effective distance learning. This has included:

• Specific additional training for our Music School Teachers
• Formulating a Memorandum of Understanding for our customers/pupils for this temporary situation
• Setting up secure and safe systems for lessons, ensuring that we follow government guidance and best practice for online safety
• Trialling lessons with various instruments, standards and ages of pupils to ensure we offer you the best possible service

We are confident that this will be a positive, uplifting experience for pupils during this difficult and unprecedented time.

Current Customers: Your Music School Teacher should have been in touch to arrange a time for the next lesson. In order to have lessons, you will need to download the free Microsoft Teams App on to a device/devices of your choice. This is a free app, working on iPad/tablet, Laptop and even phones. Please use the email address you are now reading from to create an account.

If you wish to suspend lessons at this time, or you have any questions, please contact us at your earliest convenience: musicschool@servicesforeducation.co.uk

All Services For Education safeguarding training sessions will be delivered online until further notice.

Update following the announcement by the Prime Minister (Wednesday, March 18) that school premises will be closed, for the majority of pupils with effect from Monday, March 23

Services For Education are monitoring the situation on a daily basis and continue to take steps to safeguard our employees, customers, children, visitors and course delegates.

We would like you to know that Services For Education remain fully functional and the majority of our staff remain at work and are therefore available to support schools remotely in the forthcoming weeks.

For our current training courses, we will be either delivering these through online means or deferring them to later in the year. We are also reviewing our training portfolio for the remainder of the academic year and considering where we can add in additional online courses.

We remain committed to the children and schools in Birmingham and look forward to a time when schools become fully functional again. In the meantime, if there is anything we can do to help make your situation easier, then do please contact us.

Important: cancellation of 2019/20 national curriculum assessments

We regret that, following the announcement by The Secretary of State for Education (on Wednesday 18 March), the 2019/20 national curriculum assessments will not now take place due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

As a result, all early years foundation stage, key stage 1 (KS1) and key stage 2 (KS2) assessments, have been cancelled.

Sadly, this means that no monitoring or moderation activities will take place in 2019/20.

Should you need any information or have any queries, please email Natasha Lawson-Hollingsworth, natasha.lawson-hollingsworth@servicesforeducation.co.uk

Update 17th March 2020

Following the latest government update (March 16, 2020), Services For Education is postponing all Area and Central Ensemble rehearsals and concerts and events until Sunday 19^th April with immediate effect. Please help to circulate this important message. Any updates will be posted on our website, social media and Facebook page each Friday at 12, noon.

Please feel free to contact us should you require further details on Ensemble postpone on:

music@servicesforeducation.co.uk